The Old Enemy by Henry Porter (read with me .TXT) 📕

going to look like when people get to hear about it? Here’s a promise for you and Ott. Unless you have that arrest warrant lifted, I will sink your fucking boat. And if you think that you and that upper-class fool can play games with me, I’ll make sure that the names you are trying to protect, or are trying to deal with in your own way, will be made public, with all the evidence of Russian penetration at the highest level. Got it?’ He turned away.

‘Have it your own way. But this will not turn out well for you.’

‘Don’t threaten someone who’s carrying a bloody big axe, Peter. First law of intelligence work.’

He was saved by the Bird, who had never encountered Peter Nyman before but knew exactly who he was and, more particularly, what he was. ‘There’s someone I want you to meet,’ he said, steering Samson away. ‘His name is Bruno. Macy and I had an interesting chat with him last night.’ They walked towards a small man wearing a beret, a charcoal grey suit and bow tie. ‘This is Herr Bruno Frick. He was a friend of Bobby’s and they worked together in the GDR. Herr Frick was one of our best people there, until his network was rolled up and he was imprisoned and came across a certain female employee of the Stasi. He took some splendid photographs of her in 2019, which I believe you’ve seen.’

‘Of course,’ said Samson, gripping Frick’s hand. ‘Impressive work.’

The man’s astonishingly blue eyes sparkled behind small square spectacles. ‘And Bobby put them to a good use, I understand.’

Samson was aware of Nyman and Frank Toombs watching him from different sides of the room. ‘Yes, Herr Frick, he did. But can we continue this conversation elsewhere? Maybe we could meet at the café in the Hotel Sweden two blocks from here in, say, ten minutes. I am going to bring a person with me who’s closely involved in this work. Will that be all right?’

‘By all means, but I do not wish to miss the exhibition.’

‘It won’t take more than half an hour.’ He shook his hand as though to say it had been a pleasure meeting him and moved off to find Ulrike.

Herr Frick was already there when he and Anastasia arrived, a small glass of cognac in front of him, hands folded above his stomach and a beatific expression on his face. He offered them a drink and they accepted because the wine had been hard to come by in the crowd at the gallery. When Anastasia sat down beside him he looked pleased and patted her knee, which surprised her.

‘Can I leap in with our problem?’ started Samson. ‘We can connect the woman known as Mila Daus to three husbands and multiple businesses as well as scandals but, apart from your photographs and your evidence that you saw her, we have nothing to say that she is the same person who was a senior Stasi officer at Hohenschönhausen prison. Ulrike can testify that she saw her there, but both your and Ulrike’s testimony can be dismissed as unreliable, because of the mental stress you were under at the time, and it is over thirty years ago. We have to tie her to Hohenschönhausen and the Stasi if we are to make the case that she is Russia’s primary asset in the United States, and do it so there can be no doubt. We’ve got just one shot at this.’

Herr Frick took a sip of his cognac and dabbed his lips with a folded handkerchief from his breast pocket.

‘You know Leipzig?’ he started. ‘It is the city where Ulrike was born. Many beautiful things come from Leipzig, apart from her – Bach’s music, for example. The 1989 Revolution was born in the square outside the church. And there is this. Actually, I should say these. He stretched to the pocket of the raincoat on the seat next to him and withdrew an envelope and a jam jar with a sealed top. He placed the jar on the cushion beside him and directed their attention to the envelope. This contains the proof you need of Mila Daus’s identity.’ He held the envelope horizontally and slid his entire hand inside, then brought it out with two cards held with a paper clip resting on the flat of his hand like a tray. ‘This is the report of her arrest.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Samson.

‘When Daus was nineteen and a student at Leipzig University she was arrested. The Stasi spotted her and decided to take a closer look. They sometimes did this to test a candidate’s suitability and observe their behaviour under duress. She was arrested because she was with a disorderly group of students who were drunk. It was probably a set-up.’ He turned over the first of two cards. There were three photographs in a row of a stern but pretty young student – facing the camera, in profile and half-profile. Underneath was her name, Mila Gretchen Daus, her address and date of birth – 20 August 1955. The document was dated 12 December 1974. ‘Here in a margin note are the remarks of a senior officer named Colonel Joachim Ropp, and I quote, “This is the finest candidate that I have seen in ten years. Immediate recruitment recommended.” But there is more.’ He removed the paper clip and turned over the second card and held it up. ‘Her fingerprints. She was arrested, so naturally they took her fingerprints.’

‘Where did you get this?’ asked Samson. ‘She whitewashed her record and destroyed all the incriminating entries.’

‘Maybe she forgot about the arrest. Even if she remembered it, she probably forgot that her fingerprints were in the records. To answer your question about where I got it, I stole it from the archive. Also, I stole this.’ He held up the jam jar, which contained a ball of cotton wool that had yellowed with age. He placed it on the table and took some more cognac.